The Grenada gazette. (Grenada, Miss.) 1885-18??, 1887-01-22
HABITS OF Jon
They Forage at Night Only, and Alwsys
Fake Water Before Eating,

V"tSA ASSAOAO AnAlhss
While the female coon is social and
domestic in her habits, the male is quite
the reverse. He is surly and solitary,
ranges entirely alone, and gives 20
care or attention to family matters. If
two males meet in the woods or in the
field they fight %furiously, and not in
frequently to the death. An old Jersey
c%oon-hunter tells how he once sur
prised two male fighting in a
corn field. They were so frantically in
earnest that they flew at each other
even after the dogs had jumped upon
them.
In the spring and summer the mar
gins of brooks and ponds, and the soft
mud in swamps and bays in every
coon country, are always thickly IN
denied with the graceful footprints OF
the coon, for in those months he spends
his nights in catching frogs, fish,
lizards, grubs and mussels, which are
then his chief subsistence. Later on he
ranges along the huckleberry and
blackberry patches, and fcasts on their
fruit. With the coming of the milk in
the green corr comes the coou's gala
time, for he loves the tender, succulent
grains, as the farmer knows to his
sorrow, and great are the risks he will
take to forage in the fields. 1t is not
until the berries are gone and the corn
has grown tough in the ear that the coon
begins to look about for his winter
stores. These he lays by plentifully.
from the beechnut, chestnut and acorn
crops, and on these crops depends tho
hunting Of the coon, when he is at his
best. During the nutting season he is
fat and solid and w~ide-awake, provided
that nuts are plentiful. When the coon
grows inordinately fat and large he
lessons his chances of falling a victim
to the hunter, for her he ventures hut
a short distance from his hiding-placo
and gives the dog small opportunity for
finding his trail. Even in the days
when coon-hunting was a science it was
rare hat a COON weighing over twenty
pounds was ever bagged, although they
have been known to attain a weight of
forty pounds. A coon at that weight,
however, must have been simply a ball
of fat, and but little would have been
left of him but bones and gravy after
cooking.
If the nut crop is q failure the coon
goes to his winter quarters thin and
miserable, and poorly prepared for the
long winters sleep and fast. 1t is in
seasons of such straits that the coon
wanders forth on every day of thaw,
although the snow may lie deep on the
ground, in search of such fag ends of
provender as may fall to his lot. At
such times the unfortunate coon may
been seen lowering, wan and haggard,
on the edges Of farms and door-yards,
waiting for al opportunity to pick up
scraps from the kitchen, p%oultry-yard
or pig-sty.
One popularity of the coon which.
by the way, is the c%leanest of ani-
mails, and, as has been seen, eats only
the most wholesome of food, and one
does not seem to have attracted
the attention of the book naturalists,
is that he never touches food until he
has quaffed at some spring or brook,
even if he is compelled to 60 far to
ind one. Old ~coon-hunters say that a
Don dips every mouthful of his food in
water before eating it; but, like all
hunters, old coon-hunters say many
.hipgs it would bother them like smoke
o prove.-M. T.. Sun.